The invention relates generally to the production of tritium and, more particularly to a method and apparatus for the production of tritium in an aqueous homogenous nuclear reactor.
Tritium, by itself or in combination with deuterium, has been proposed as a fuel for thermonuclear or fusion reactors. Although deuterium is available in nature, tritium must be manufactured by transmutation of other elements. Tritium is commonly made by irradiating lithium-6 targets in a fission-type nuclear reactor. This has the disadvantage that, because of its short half-life, a significant amount of the tritium will decay before it can be recovered from the irradiated targets.
If one attempts to shorten this recovery time by manufacturing the tritium in a homogenous reactor, one may create a further problem of separating the tritium from the lighter isotopes of hydrogen with which it may become mixed.
It is, accordingly, a general object of the invention to provide a method for production of tritium which allows for the immediate and continuous recovery of the tritium.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus which will separate the generated tritium from the lower isotopes of hydrogen.
Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention and the accompanying drawings.